Toronto is digging itself out of a major snowfall this week and now a polar vortex of extreme cold has moved in. Looks like the spring market will start a little later this year. So far in January the market has been “slow”. In traditional years that was typical for the first month of the year, but we have been spoiled with the last couple of years where house hunters were eagerly pouncing on listings as they appeared in January. FOMO ‘fear of missing out’ has calmed a little. This is not the case for all of Toronto. Certain neighbourhoods are still crazy busy, especially Riverdale/Leslieville where 75% of the properties sold last week in a bidding war.

Freehold listings across the 416 where down 23% last week and this continues to be a source of concern. Sales on the other hand have doubled from the week before. In the central core, there were no new listings below $700k, 29 between $1.5M and $3M, and 28 new listings over $3M. The east core continues to be a hot district where sales are outpacing new listings by a 3 to 1 margin.

The condo market has an equal share of heat this week as well. Sales of existing suites has outpaced listings. It is evident that the contraction of listings (down 32% from the previous week) and a small increase in sales (up 8%) is having an impact on pricing, with over 50% of condos sold last week at or above the list price. The majority of sales that occurred were in the $400K to $700K price range.